Johnson's tale floors five rivals

By Andrew Baker

12:01AM GMT 28 Nov 2006

A heavyweight biography of a great boxing champion yesterday knocked out strong opposition to win the 2006 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.

Unforgivable Blackness by Geoffrey C Ward beat a powerful six-strong short list to land the £20,000 trophy unofficially known as 'The Bookie Prize'. The award, now in its 18th year, has grown into the most prestigious acknowledgement of sporting literary merit in Europe and brings not only a substantial cash prize but greatly enhanced sales in the crucial pre-Christmas period.

The deliberations of the judges, among them Daily Telegraph columnist John Inverdale, are closely guarded, but chairman John Gaustad admitted that this year's selection process had been the closest for a long time. "It was a very strong shortlist," Gaustad said. The winner, a silver-bearded American historian, is not a sports writer by trade. "But sports writing in the US is an established and very lucrative genre," he said. Unforgivable Blackness tells the story of Jack Johnson whose exploits in and out of the ring blaze a trail that other world heavyweight champions have struggled to match.

Johnson's self-belief was near impregnable as, Ward recalled, he felt that Halley's Comet was puny by comparison, but his capacity for self-destruction was as powerful as that of Mike Tyson.

Co-founder of the award, William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe, said the judges had a harder than usual task. "But that's a good sign for the health of sports writing." Ward, an award-winning writer in other fields, wins £18,000 and a £2,000 free bet. "Apart from putting pennies in fruit machines, I've never had a bet in my life," he said.